


Small Town Quirks

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Small Town, And Tony is a confused city chicken, Humor, I dont know about arkansas small towns, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Prepare for Some Weird Shit, Rumors, Small Town Shenanigans, Small Towns, Steve and Bucky are from a small town originally, Tony Being Tony, based on real small towns, but they all seem to be the same, or similar, seriously, so i figure the small town canada experience is close enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 13:14:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11555943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: Steve and Bucky told Tony they were from a small town but he didn't exactly realize that the small town experience was completely different than what he knew and loved about the city.Steve and Bucky find Tony's cluelessness charming and amusing.





	Small Town Quirks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DearNymphadora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DearNymphadora/gifts), [GoodSourceofFiber](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoodSourceofFiber/gifts).



> I was talking with a friend about weird small town shit that we know is small town shit because our city friends get confused when we mention these things to them. The joke about the music and the cousins is her little addition to the story. 
> 
> Regardless, this is all stuff that's actually happened where I lived with only a few embellishments to the real stories.

Tony knew that Steve and Bucky were from a small back hole town in Arkansas but hearing about it and seeing it were two different things. In the city no one knew him minus those who might notice his being a celebrity but here it was like Steve and Bucky were celebrities. This was the third time someone has stopped them walking to ask them questions about where they went- to school in New York where yes, they both graduated, yes they were dating someone, and yes they were only visiting. This was routine for them he knew because they ran through a script that was remarkably similar across every person they came across. There were only slight variations to every conversation and Tony is oddly reminded of interviews he did sometimes for news outlets and comedy shows. To say that was weird was an understatement.

Once they finally get back to Steve’s mother’s house Tony was totally thrown. First of all there was almost _no_ traffic, he could hear _bugs_ in the town like crickets, and he swore to god everyone knew everyone. Mostly though he was thrown by the fact that apparently both Steve and Bucky had fucking Arkansas accents and apparently just faked the ones from Brooklyn or something.

“Why’re you looking at us like that?” Bucky asks with that shitty freaking accent. Jesus Tony was glad he didn’t have to hear _that_ in bed all the time. He guessed he shouldn’t complain given that one time he picked up that Canadian accent and that was… awful. He had unironically used the word ‘bud’ for like a year after his stint in the east.

“You fake bitches have accents,” he says and Steve bursts out laughing and Tony swears the accent taints that too.

“No we both just pick up accents really easily,” he says.

“No. Stop it, go back to the Brooklyn accents this is terrible.”

“Oh come on, it could be a Californian accent,” Bucky points out.

“Eastern Canada, Tony. ‘Let’s go for a rip there, bud’,” Steve says in a perfect imitation of a bad Canadian accent. “I don’t even know what that _means_.”

“It means-” Tony starts but Steve cuts him off.

“Hey mom,” Steve says, interrupting Tony as Sarah walks in the door carrying groceries. Like the valiant young man he is Steve runs over to help and Tony mostly stays were he is because he can still hear the freaking bugs somehow in the house and they were _screaming_.

“Why are there bugs screaming?” he asks. “What the fuck even _is_ that?” He has never heard this noise a day in his life.

“Language,” Sarah tells him and Tony suddenly knows where Steve got that from. Well, there goes his chances of a good impression but there were _screaming bugs_.

“Those are cicadas, Tony. Have you never heard those before?” Bucky asks, laughing because he damn well knew the answer to that.

“No I have never heard a bug scream like that before. Do they stop at night because if they don’t I’m not sleeping,” he says with confidence. He wasn’t sleeping anyways but a guy could hope.

Sarah shakes her head, “you listen to emergency vehicles, regular traffic, and every other city noise at night and you’re worried about cicadas?” she shakes her head, “city folk.”

“I’d take ambulances over this bug that apparently feels the need to shriek at the top of its lungs,” Tony says. Bucky starts laughing harder because he’s a traitor and Tony wants to go back to the city where things were smoggy and natural. “Nice to meet you I’m Tony,” he adds to Sarah way too late but she’s at least cooperative and shakes his hand.

“Nice grip,” she comments and he raises an eyebrow. Weird thing to base her judgment on but okay.

“I’ve spent my entire life in business, I have no choice but to have a decent handshake.” Obadiah, pre trying to screw them all over, had made it his life’s mission to make sure Tony had a good handshake. It was probably one of the crappiest birthday presents he’s ever gotten even if it hand ended up being useful later in life.

“Right, weapons,” Sarah says in a disapproving tone. He makes a snap judgment based on her wardrobe that she was a hippy as a kid, which would explain Steve’s very liberal views.

“Clean energy,” he corrects, “weapons were Howard’s business.” He’s never been entirely comfortable with what they did and after Obadiah he changed everything. Pretty much everyone thought it was some weird reaction he had to his parents’ deaths at the hands of their jackhole business partner and they weren’t totally wrong. Yeah, it was in response to Howard’s death but it was mostly a reaction to being forced into his father’s role his whole life. He’s never wanted to be Howard Stark and the man’s death left Tony wondering if he was turning into his own person of his father and so he made a choice to let Howard die. He was his own person and he was damn well going to show the world that. So he shut down the most profitable sector of his father’s company, had a brief battle with the Board of Directors in which he basically told them to shove it and then did what he wanted anyways.

It paid off given that he had made his lost money back in a year, doubled it in two years, and broke into billionaire status by year three. Howard once told him that Tony would have to love up to his legacy as if those shoes were too big for him to fill but it turned out Howard’s shoes were fucking useless so he made his own way better shoes. Maybe that was a crappy metaphor but whatever, point was Howard was a footnote in his history now. Served him right _and_ clean energy was the logical way to go given recent climate changes.

Sarah looks him up and down like she’s sizing him up and Steve’s face tells Tony he should be nervous. He didn’t need Steve’s vaguely constipated looking fairy face to be nervous though. He sort of expects Sarah to hate him on principal or something; parents _never_ liked him with the exception of Rhodey’s mother and it took her a decade to come around. Instead Sarah chooses to ask questions. “I figure you got out of weapons for obvious ethical reasons,” she says though she doesn’t sound like she believes that was his reason. She wasn’t exactly wrong so Tony doesn’t take offense. “But why choose clean energy?”

“Because climate change is a thing and people kept bitching about clean energy being expensive so I thought I’d take them to task on it. Thanks to my cheap, but efficient, clean energy products all idiots have left are claims that climate change is liberal propaganda, which makes no sense but whatever. Either way I don’t see a downside in not killing our planet given that we can’t exactly move to a new one.” Sure he could have sunk money into that but that would just be absurd when they could just not ruin the planet they’re already on. Simple logic.

“Some days I wish I could move to a new planet,” Sarah mumbles and Tony laughs.

“Don’t we all.” Once he hear a conspiracy theory that he was a Nazi lizard in a skin suit and he decided that maybe conspiracy theories weren’t as fun as he initially thought they were. They were a guilty pleasure of his and Hope’s and Pepper didn’t understand their love.

“Tony’s mad because we have fake Brooklyn accents,” Bucky throws in and Sarah throws up her hands.

“Right? Their normal accent is just fine but they decided to blend in they’d fake a Brooklyn accent,” she says, shaking her head at them.

“I prefer the fake one, like I want to hear their Arkansas shit in bed,” he says, realizing _way_ too late what he just said out loud to his boyfriend’s mother. At least Bucky’s mom was dead so she didn’t have to hear him make a fool of himself. Rhodey and Hope were going to _howl_ when he video called them later to fill them in on this turd of a ‘meet the parents’ event. “I’m going to leave now and take my chance with the cicadas, whatever the hell those are,” he says, fleeing the scene fast.

*

Bucky and Steve have never laughed so hard in their lives. They watch Tony flee the house and Sarah shakes her head, “he’s a weird one. Much less cocky in person,” she notes.

Steve nods, “most of that is a very good act. He’s much more wholesome when you don’t catch his attitude in interviews.” Bucky had _told_ Steve this but he hadn’t believed him until they met and surprisingly the two got along pretty well.

Sarah gives Steve a _look_ , “sure, _wholesome_ is what I’d describe that last conversation as,” she says.

Steve winces, “he’s just nervous,” he says in Tony’s defense. They eventually escape Sarah to go save Tony from the bugs he was sure to encounter and freak out about given his usual reaction to spiders. They had no idea he had a thing with bugs until he got his house fumigated when he found a fly once, which was equal parts hilarious and absurd. Actually Tony was equal parts hilarious and absurd, so it fit.

“That screaming bug is so much louder out here, how do you make them stop?” Tony asks when they find him glaring at the cornfield around the house.

“I think it’s a mating thing,” Bucky says.

Tony lets out a long sigh, “are you seriously telling me that I have to get these freaking bugs laid to get them to shut up? I wish it were socially acceptable for _me_ to scream when I wanted sex,” he mumbles.

Steve starts laughing all over again and Bucky quickly joins because neither one of them thought he’d be this clueless. Sure he had looked a little confused when Steve and Bucky talked about their small town with a population so small it technically classified as a village but they still thought Tony knew what small town life was like. At least until he asked if ‘small town’ meant what was, at least to Steve and Bucky, a small city- meaning a town with a population of around sixty thousand people. Their town had a thousand if they were _lucky_. Tony had then spent the rest of the plane trip whining about being dragged to ‘the boonies’, which had made Steve and Bucky laugh even harder than they already were and then they offered to take him to the _actual_ boonies a few towns over. He declined quickly.

They try to explain cicadas to Tony and, to no one’s surprise, Clint and Nat ended up hearing about their presence in town and come to crash their party. Tony looks bewildered with the sudden presence of company especially when the conversation follows the same pattern they had with the three previous family friends they ran into on the way to Steve’s moms. Except they were actually friends with Clint and Nat so it quickly developed into a conversation about when they all went to school together, which ended up a conversation about weird high school rumors.

“Wait, _what_?” Tony asks when Natasha brings up the rumor about someone having sex on a mattress that was, for a short time, under one of the stairwells in the high school.

“Someone had sex on a mattress under the stairs,” Clint says slowly just to be a dick.

“It’s not true,” Natasha throws in.

“Uh, actually it is and I know because it was me,” Steve says. Tony gives him a _look_ and Bucky is pretty sure he, Natasha, and Clint were all mirroring it. “What? Like you guys haven’t done worse. You lost your virginity to Clint in a forest at prom Nat, you could have got leaves in your under bits so don’t you give me that look,” Steve tells her.

She and Clint both drop the ‘what the hell’ looks off their faces because that was true. “Okay but the bleachers sex rumor was totally fake though,” Clint says. Oh right, Bucky forgot about that one.

“No it wasn’t and yes, that was also me,” Steve says. Tony squints at him in what Bucky thinks is a combination of disgust, shock, and some kind of impressed or something but Steve rolls his eyes. “Don’t you look at me like that Stark, not after all the nudes of you all over the internet. I may have had a questionable sex life as a teen but you have _five_ sex tapes.” Tony is forced to relent after that.

“Okay,” Natasha says, “but we can all agree that everyone used the handicapped bathroom that was inexplicably on the second floor to hook up with people, right?”

Steve nods and Bucky is forced to nod too and Tony just looks shocked. “What, city folk don’t hook up in the bathrooms?” Clint asks and Tony shakes his head.

“Nah I’ve had plenty of school sex but in college because I didn’t really do high school. I mean not on dirty mattresses under the stairs or bleachers like _some_ dirty bastard over here but it’s happened. I’m just confused about the handicapped bathroom on the second floor. What the hell?”

Bucky snorts, “yeah, when we got a new teacher that drove a scooter around because… I guess he didn’t want to use a wheelchair for some reason, whatever, point is the school had to put an elevator in. I guess they realized to take a leak this poor bastard would have had to scooter his ass across the school to the stairs with the lift on it, get out of the scooter and into the lift, have some sorry sap get that scooter up the stairs for him to get back on it, and then scooter his way to the bathroom to piss. By then the poor guy probably would have had to have a change of clothes with him so he could change in the poorly planned bathroom.”

“Clearly no one actually considered that people with disabilities might not have the use of their _legs_ ,” Tony says, rolling his eyes. Rhodey, Bucky was sure, would find this story equal parts hilarious and frustrating considering he’d be the kid that would have had to do this being in a wheelchair and all.

“Who cares, no one used it so we all used it to hook up instead. I hope the janitor cleaned well in there,” Clint says, wrinkling his nose.

“The janitor was Mitch Vander Holt, there was no way that thing was clean,” Steve says and they all consider how gross that is.

*

Tony was shocked at how well everyone knew everyone here and honestly preferred the city, especially when the inexplicable rumors that flew around this bumpkin town came up.

“I heard he fucked a horse,” Clint says.

Natasha shook his head, “no it was a cat.”

“No, the other guy fucked the cat and Joe was the one with the horse. But I also heard it was a pig so who knows,” Steve throws in.

“What the fuck is wrong with people in this town?” Tony asks, looking appropriately disgusted.

“Oh right, it was a horse _and_ a pig, I remember now,” Clint says, nodding.

“Again, disgusting,” Tony says.

“Not as bad as that one chick… what was her name, the one that slept with her cousin?” Steve asks and Tony throws up his hands, horrified with this.

“Something Lynn,” Natasha says. “And it was okay, according to her, because it was her third cousin.”

Tony seems to realize something because he perks up, “you guys got that from Mean Girls! That’s fake and so is the weird amount of bestiality here.”

“Pretty sure any bestiality is a weird amount,” Steve points out, “but no that really happened. Do you guys remember that one girl who went into labor at prom?” he asks Nat and Clint.

They frown and exchange a look but they were also a couple years younger than he and Steve. “I think that was before their time,” Bucky says.

“No they were there, I _swear_ they were,” Steve says.

“No I think that was when we were in grade eleven so they were still in grade school,” Bucky says.

“Wait, how old you two?” Tony asks.

“Three years younger than them,” Nat says, gesturing to Bucky and Steve.

“So you guys actually missed that? Come on, it was like that Family Guy skit they did with the prom night dumpster babies. I mean I don’t like Family Guy but that’s what it reminded me of and now I’m mad you guys aren’t in on it,” Steve mumbles, sulkily looking out the window as Clint bursts into loud laughter.

“Prom night dumpster baby? _I’m_ mad I missed that. Dude, that’s hilarious!” Clint continues laughing while Natasha shakes her head and rolls her eyes ruefully. Tony just looks on in horror at another piece of small town fuckery he didn’t know about even if Bucky totally calls bullshit. There was no ways cities didn’t have pregnant teens at prom. But then Tony didn’t really do school in a normal way so maybe that’s why he was confused.

“Okay but we all know about the one girl who ended up knocked up and took the shitty parenting class,” Nat says.

“And,” Steve adds, “if the boyfriend wasn’t shitty he took it with her. Remember when Rumlow killed his robo baby like seven times and then the teacher refused to let him redo the project again after someone showed her a video of him throwing the baby football style over a pool at a party while the people there were inexplicably shouting ‘four twenty’ in the background? I do, I spotted him dangling the baby by its ankle the first time he killed it because his locker was by mine.”

“I was the one he was throwing the baby to,” Clint says, “I missed and the robo baby met a permanent death when it fell in the pool. Bucky taking that damn parenting class to impress that girl was hilarious though, what was her name? Dot or something- anyways he ended up deciding that he should never have kids even though everyone else already knew this freak shouldn’t reproduce.” They all laugh and Bucky flips them off.

*

“Corn rash,” Bucky says suddenly. After Tony’s hilarious reactions to things from small towns that were shocking to him they had all started coming up with more ‘small town culture’ things to confuse City Boy Tony.

“Corn _what_?” Tony asks, frowning at him.

“From corn detasseling,” Bucky says, “you get corn rash when the leaves of the corn rub up against you and cut you and whatever.”

“Worst. Job. Ever. I almost _died_ ,” Steve says and he isn’t even exaggerating. With the heat in the field and his asthma it didn’t really end well. Bucky, unfortunately, got stuck doing the job for five summers before he found a real job at the only gas station in town. Steve ended up working for the tiny library they had downtown.

“What the hell is a ‘corn detasseling’?” Tony asks. Steve gives him a _look_ and Bucky didn’t actually know that he would be confused about that.

“Baby, it’s exactly what it says on the tin. The corn, you detasstle it,” Bucky explains.

“What the hell does that entail even?” he asks.

“Walking up and down rows of corn for roughly ten to twelve hours a day ripping tassels off corn and nearly dying of heat stroke half way through while you supposed supervisors tell you to get back to work,” Steve says bitterly.

“He’s not wrong,” Bucky says when Tony looks at him.

“And the corn… gives you a _rash_?” he asks looking confused.

“You’ve never been in a corn field have you?” Bucky asks and Tony shakes his head.

“You’re in luck, we’re surrounded by one get up we’re going to show you the corn,” Bucky tells him, pulling him out of the tiny bed that only fit them all because Steve and Tony were so small. Bucky was pleased about this because he got _two_ little spoons.

“I’m not going outside at night,” Tony says. “I’ve seen horror movies, this is were the idiot white people die. I know this because Rhodey has spent years training me out of my ‘white nonsense’ tendencies.” Steve starts laughing so hard he needs his inhaler and Bucky decides to cut his time in half and just pick Tony up, carrying him outside so he could feel the corn.

*

Tony swears when the cops catch him flying through town at high speeds, probably because he was the only fucking car on the road. And maybe because he was driving a bright red sports car but he loved his baby, he had it flown in so he could feel less shitty about the corn rash that Bucky forced on him. It was _itchy_.

The cop swaggers up to his window and Tony can see Steve watching, presumably to see if he knew the guy but he probably did. He knew _everyone_. “Wiggerson, hey!” Steve says brightly, “I thought you were supposed to retire two years ago.”

The cop, Wiggerson apparently, brightens immediately. “Steve Rogers, holy shit. I heard you were back in town but you never stick around long enough for me to see you, how you been?” he asks in that weird conversational tone people used here. Sure it happened in cities too but not nearly as much in Tony’s experience.

“You know me, never did like it here and I’ve got shows for my art in New York so usually I’m there but mom was nagging for me to visit and, well, I had to bring home the boyfriend to meet her so I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone. Bet the missus is pretty ticked you didn’t retire when you were supposed to,” Steve says, continuing this bizarre conversation. Did he really know this cop’s wife that well? How could he keep all these backstories straight? Tony couldn’t even remember Pepper’s birthday.

“Yeah, yeah I heard about your art. Good for you, we all thought you’d end up homeless,” the cop says and Tony gives him an offended enough look that Steve didn’t need to. “You’re damn right Arlene is pissed that I didn’t retire though but someone has to pay the pills.”

Steve nods sympathetically, “does she still do her knitting?” he asks. Jesus, he knew these people’s _hobbies_?

“She does, she knit Stacey’s baby an adorable little set of shoes, don’t tell her I said that though. She thinks I don’t pay attention but I do,” he says. Tony frowns because wouldn’t that be the kind of thing he’d _want_ his wife to know? According to Steve’s Good Communication lesson that was the kind of thing you were supposed to tell your partner. He’d ask later. They continue chatting while Tony tries to figure out what the hell just happened but, mercifully, the cop lets him off without even mentioning his speed and bids Steve a good day.

“That,” Steve says, “is how you get out of getting a ticket in a small town. Also I know that he exclusively reads gay romances thanks to my job at the library in high school and we both know it isn’t just because he supports gay rights.”

Tony shakes his head, “well okay. That was the weirdest interaction I have ever had but sure, no ticket.”

*

“That time Bucky committed suicide,” Natasha says, finding another Small Town Quirk. Actually it was more of a quirk that belonged to their high school but still.

Tony frowns, “uh, what?” It was becoming a mantra these days.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “I had the flue for a week right but this was right after the depression hit pretty bad and I was growing my hair out and all that so when I dropped off the face of the earth for the school week I apparently committed suicide. This was apparently confirmed because Steve didn’t show up to school either; he supposedly took time off to mourn. I guess they didn’t consider that he has a weak immune system and caught my sick. Poor bastard who saw me in the hall on Monday was pretty fucking surprised.”

Clint snorts, “that wasn’t even what I heard. I heard that you and Steve had a suicide pact and you _both_ committed suicide. That’s why people were spooked by Steve too,” he says.

“Jesus Christ, _what_?” Tony asks, looking shocked for the millionth time since coming here.

“Tones, the people here have nothing to do but meth, do you honestly expect better?” Steve asks seriously. Tony must not because he doesn’t respond.

“Remember that time we were supposed to come up with a prom theme and someone wrote porn?” Bucky asks.

Clint laughs, “that was me. Who wrote zombie apocalypse?” he asks.

“Me,” Steve says.

“That’s fine, I wrote monopoly as a fucking joke and some idiots decided _that_ was a good choice,” Bucky mumbles, rolling his eyes.

“Hey, don’t knock it, that’s how we got to witness Zack and Jeremy get kicked out of the prom because they destroyed the thimble,” Steve says, snickering.

“And,” Clint adds, “someone wheeled a drunk off his tits Zola outside in the wheelbarrow and dumped him in the garden. _Hilarious_.”

“Weren’t Zach and Jeremy the guys who tried to start a gang?” Bucky asks, frowning.

“Yeah and then Zach’s mom dragged him off to the cops by his ear,” Steve confirms.

“I’m sorry, there are cows in a field down the street from your old school. Why were these people trying to start a freaking gang? I know gangs and they don’t come from buttfuck nowhere Arkansas,” Tony says. This makes them all start laughing and Tony sighs, accepting it.

*

“Hope, you don’t understand they have a guy in their down who’s name is Pig Fucker Joes AKA Horse Fucker Joe AKA Fly Eater Joe. It isn’t natural,” Tony tells her.

Hope is doubled over the table in New York, thankfully because this was where Tony _belonged_ , while he told her about his trip to Steve and Bucky’s small ass town in the boonies. He didn’t care what they said about it not being the boonies their school had something called ‘tractor day’, they were from the fucking boonies.

“Tony this is all stuff they told you to razz you,” she says, recovering from her laughing fit.

Tony leans forward to emphasize the words he was about to say, “no Hope they did not. I asked some rando on the street about horse fucker Joe and he knew who I was talking about and gave a dead on description. I asked someone who looked their age about that time everyone thought Bucky _committed suicide_ and the guy remembered the rumor. I asked about the sex mattress and he remembered that too. I asked someone else about the girl who went into labor at prom and she remembered it. It’s all freaking true unless this entire town made up a backstory to personally fool me and get this Hope. _Half of them didn’t even know who I was_. Well they did, but they couldn’t recognize me. What the hell? And the music,” he says dramatically, “sounds like you fuck your cousin. Which apparently some people _did_.”

Small towns, Tony has decided, weren’t for him. Though he had to admit that Sarah’s friend coming over and taking in Steve and Bucky’s poly relationship with Tony was pretty hilarious. He had just looked between the three of them and shook his head. “Rogers runs off to New York, becomes an activist artist, and somehow ends up in a polygamous relationship with a tech wizard and his best friend. Sounds about right. We all knew you were gay for Bucky though.” With that he had walked off and they went back to reading in a puppy pile. The reaction was hilarious though and better than that one old lady that called Tony a sin. Steve had said he didn’t care because Tony was a hot sin and that’s all he cared about. Bucky was offended that he didn’t also get to be a hot sin.

“Seriously, the people in the town confirmed the stories?” Hope asks, sobering.

“Yes. They also have this thing called ‘corn detasseling’ and it gives you corn burn! Did you know corn could do that? It’s horrible and itchy. Also their school had a handicapped bathroom on the second floor for some reason,” he says, shaking his head at the sheer stupidity of that. He’s seen some bad designs as far as disability and buildings go but that had to take the cake.

“What’s corn detasseling?” Hope asks.

“The tassels on the corn, you take them off,” he says.

“And it gives you corn burn?” Tony nods and she looks as confused as he felt until Bucky dumped his ass in a cornfield and then his sensitive skin got freaking corn burn. Bucky must have some kind of resistance because _he_ was fine. “And all their insane stories were true? Even the one about that one person apparently sleeping with their cousin?” Hope asks.

Tony nods, “after being there for two weeks I can see why the addiction rate is so high. The only thing to do there is drugs,” he says honestly. He took to stealing someone’s peppers from their field in the middle of the night for a cheap thrill and now Sarah had a freezer full of them. And that one night they went _cow tipping_. If he ever had to watch as his very expensive Gucci shoe landed in a giant pile of cow turd ever again it would be too soon. He guessed in their defense cow tipping mostly consisted of chasing the cows around instead of actually tipping them over and then petting them later but still. His stuff _still_ smelled like hay for some reason. It was just a permeating scent that covered the town. Which had a _single_ gas station and two restaurants. And that bug that screamed, god he hated those things.

“Well did meeting Sarah at least go well?” Hope asks.

He nods, “yeah she used to be a hippy so she was totally on board with my clean energy stuff and had like five hundred questions about how things worked. For all the stereotypes about conservative small towns they were pretty liberal,” he says. “Well Sarah was at least,” he thinks, remembering that overheard conversation about how the government was making people gay by poisoning the water or something. Steve had laughed so hard when he overheard that that he had to actually remove himself from the restaurant.

“Well then that’s all that matters,” Hope says primly, “and since Rhodey couldn’t make it to lunch I’m supposed to tell you that telling a black man to come save you from the south is one of the dumbest ideas you’ve ever come up with.”

“Hey, there were black people there. One family and they got weird looks but Sam Wilson was a _delight_.” He also apparently dated Steve _and_ Bucky at some point but so had Natasha and Clint because they were the only dating options for that group Tony guessed. When Steve found a yearbook to show them their other options he didn’t feel so jealous and threatened because he’d date Sam too given the alternatives. Guy was movie star hot even when he was a gangly teen in high school and that was just unfair. Tony looked like a demented peep at fifteen.

“One black person who gets weird looks negates the racism?” Hope asks, eyebrow raised.

“No, but still. They could band up together. That’s what Steve’s friend group did when they all realized none of them were straight and it worked out okay.” The entire friend group, that was just weird. What were the chances in a small town? Pretty good apparently because they were all bisexual minus Clint, who was asexual. He joked that he was too lazy to have a sexuality. Tony couldn’t fault the logic after knowing him for a week.

Hope shakes her head, “this town sounds wild, I want to go,” she says.

“No you do not. Within hours you’ll realize that it’s horrible and the nearest entertainment is a half an hour away and it’s a shitty theater. You should see what passes as public transit there; if you think New York is sketchy this town actually gives it a run for its money.” And here Tony thought that was impossible but small towns were apparently full of surprises. At least Steve and Bucky adopted their Brooklyn accents back as soon as they were back in their proper state and Tony didn’t have to deal with that weird shit in bed anymore. He loved them both but there was only so much he could take.


End file.
